Jack Welch, the former chief executive officer of General Electric Co., and author of “Straight from the Gut”, has been very busy on the talk shows and speaking circuit lately, and here’s what he’s been saying.

“The government has taken advantage of the economic crisis to get a tighter grip on the US economy, and this does not bode well for business”.

“There are so many things that bother me right now. Over the last couple of weeks, things have really gone south in the government relationships”.

“These guys, when they came in, said a crisis like this is impossible to waste. The government seems to think there’s a crisis and now we can get in here and do all the things that we dreamed about when we were at Harvard, when we were somewhere else”.

“The government now controls about 37% of the US economy, including health care, and this makes businesses uneasy, despite promises that the state’s role will shrink when the economy gets better. Now, these guys say they want to get out. Do you believe that? Do they want to get out?”.

“The Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) funds, with the conditions attached to them, are also something to be avoided by businesses. And the news that six insurers secured a green light from the Treasury Department to receive funds under the TARP is not good news”. Referring to Obama, Welch said, “I don’t particularly like where he’s taking us. To get the money he needs, he has to have a fake budget. He’s fooling people about how we’re going to have the top line support the programs in the middle without enormous taxes”. Asked about the restructuring of Chrysler, he replied, “I didn’t like the terms. The creditors’ rights were trashed and the unions got 55% of the company”. He did have a couple of good things to say though, “The president’s plan to implement the nation’s first national standard for greenhouse-gas emissions was sound. This emissions plan is not one that gives me great trouble’. And on the direction of the economy, “I want new housing starts to go down, down, down. It’s the only way to get housing prices stabilized, and we need to stabilize housing prices. While the market didn’t like it, housing starts going down again I like it”.


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